Issues of migration and immigration are global issues. Research suggests that a movement of significant population groups in the decades to come will offer both challenges and opportunities (Khanna, Move: The Forces Uprooting Us, 2021). Global citizens flee their homes to escape violence, climate change, and seek economic opportunities. They are affected by immigration policies and the practices and beliefs about their mobility and migration all along their journey – from the local to the national to the global. What can be learned about the context for leadership, the political, social, economic, technical conditions impacting U.S. immigration policies and practices in the Chicago example?   

Community responses to immigration vary.  The issue has become contentious globally, including in the United States.  In the U.S. state of Texas, Governor Greg Abbott began the “drop-off” policy, sending buses full of asylum seekers to northern sanctuary cities, including to Chicago. Sanctuary jurisdictions were designed to provide refuge to asylum seekers.  Chicago and the state of Illinois welcomed immigrants sent from southern border states without notice or the opportunity to prepare for their arrival. Government, non-profit, and faith groups struggled with how, but ultimately found ways to support, over 40,000 immigrants. This support, sometimes protested due to the presence of underserved citizens who have been in Chicago all along, has remained steady and has grown increasingly effective because of private, public, and grass roots mobilization. Chicago community and governmental leaders believed that welcoming immigrants and non-documented citizens was in its best interest and chose a humanitarian and progressive response that has defined its politics over the decades. 

We will meet in the Institute of Cultural Affairs building and hear about a local humanitarian response, the North Shore Neighbors Say Bienvenidos (welcome) from its founder, Jessica Leving Siegel. This community leader, who mobilized Wilmette and other North Shore villages of Chicago, will share the story of the humanitarian response to the migrant crisis in their local communities. A particular focus will be on how public community leaders collaborated and coordinated their response, including the capacity to immediately respond when buses transporting immigrants suddenly arrived in Chicago. We will learn how and why this Chicago area community chose to welcome asylum seekers, refugees, and non-documented citizens. We will also learn from a community engagement experience with Nuevos Vecinos community organizers at their nearby Free Store.   

We will introduce and contextualize the issue of asylum seekers and refugees moving from their homes, the cause, and the dynamics that led to the U.S. border challenge and the response of sanctuary cities welcoming people as they transit to a new life and way of living.  ILA Public Leadership facilitators will guide discussion exploring the lessons learned from the Chicago experience. Deliberate on how public leadership can prepare and thereby better serve humans on the move. Raquel Thiesen, Director of Community Partnerships at Kansas Leadership Center, will lead a gap analysis to gain insights into the challenges and possibilities of creating welcoming support systems to “humans on the move’.   

Session Goals 

1. Gain insights into global pressures on humans to move.  
2. Learn from grassroots leaders about practical struggles and innovations, how to build bridges to create effective systems of support. 
3. Community engagement in Uptown neighborhood (Denny, do we know whether we can help out in store?).  
4. Gain understanding of global context and the gap in practice and future vision. 
5. Learn an effective tool to transfer to other issues and contexts. 

References  

Khanna, Parag, author. (2021). Move: the forces uprooting us. New York, N.Y.: Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.